A normal user's look into the world of 3D Stereo Technologies

Up until recently the affordable 1080p 3D-capable consumer projectors were considered to go for about $1500 USD, but it seems that BenQ is trying to bring the price range even lower to a $1000 USD level with their new BenQ W1070 1080p 3D DLP projector. The projector is appearing on the North American market with a price of $999 USD (hence the sub $1000) and in Europe you should be able to find it for less than 900 Euro. Aside from the W1070 version, BenQ also has a short throw model called W1080ST with the same specifications as the W1070 including 3D support, but with a short-throw lens. Of course the price of the W1080ST will be over $1000 USD, more like $1299 when it becomes available in the beginning of 2013. Both models are going to be interesting because of their affordable price among the home users with more limited budgets that want to be able to play Full HD 3D movies at home and even be able to play games in stereo 3D mode at 720p resolution. The lower resolution for stereo 3D gaming is caused by the fact that these 3D-capable projectors from BenQ are based around HDMI 1.4 frame packaging, though they apparently will also support Frame Sequential, Top-Bottom and Side-by-Side 3D modes across most interfaces. Both projectors are also officially compatible with Nvidia’s 3DTV Play software (using HDMI 1.4), but not officially compatible with 3D Vision (though up to 1280×800 the projector should be supported in frame sequential mode with up to 120Hz), so you will not be able to use the 3D Vision active shutter glasses and will need to go for DLP Link ones (not included in the standard price of the projector).

If you are looking for a 3D-capable projector that is going to be used mostly for gaming and the 1080p mode is not a requirement, then you might want to check out the BenQ W700 or W710ST (short throw version). These two are 720p 3D DLP projectors that use HDMI 1.3 interface and support 3D over frame sequential mode only, they are official 3D Vison ready devices that can be used with either 3D Vision active shutter glasses or DLP Link ones. The new BenQ W1070/W1080ST models support 1080p 3D mode only at 24Hz which is good for 3D movies, but not for gaming in stereo 3D mode, so even with them you will have to get down to 720p resolution. And using the HDMI 1.4 frame packaging mode for the 3D instead of frame sequential mode tends to increase the input lag and that is something you’d want to avoid as much as possible when talking about gaming.